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Photos: The Big East’s Garden Party

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The Big East’s Garden Party

The Big East’s Garden Party

CreditAssociated Press

The way the Big East tells it, this year’s men’s basketball tournament represents a return to the conference’s roots as a group of proud basketball schools that escaped from under the thumb of all-powerful college football to revel in their sport’s greatness. And they will do it at Madison Square Garden, the conference tournament’s home since 1983. In reality, the Big East’s current membership would stump most “Jeopardy” contestants, and the gathering is certain to feel haunted by the ghosts of departed stalwarts like Syracuse, Connecticut and Pittsburgh.

In 1983, when the conference talked its way into the World’s Most Famous Arena, after three years of shuttling among less famous ones, there were no ghosts lurking in the Garden’s hallways. There was just Commissioner Dave Gavitt and his audacious creation, a nine-team cabal with an ESPN contract, riding a wave that would lift college basketball to unimagined heights in the world of television and entertainment.

The conference’s initial tournament, in 1980, had been played — and rather sparsely attended — at the Providence Civic Center, which made sense because Gavitt was Providence College’s former coach and put the conference’s first headquarters there. The tournament migrated to Syracuse’s Carrier Dome in 1981, where more than 15,000 people watched the title game. They were treated to Syracuse’s three-overtime victory over Villanova, which raised the league’s profile. By the time the Big East tournament went to the Hartford Civic Center in 1982, Georgetown had Patrick Ewing in the fold and the big time was beckoning.

Moving to the Garden came with a little controversy. People believed it gave St. John’s a home-court advantage because it played many home games there. To that, St. John’s Coach Lou Carnesecca scoffed. “There is no such thing as a hometown advantage,” Carnesecca said. “For one thing, the refs don’t want to be called homers. For another, the fans are not as provincial here as other places. If you play well, O.K. If you don’t, you’d better wear a helmet.”

St. John’s, powered by Chris Mullin and David Russell, won that first tournament at the Garden, but as if to prove Carnesecca prophetic, it won only two more in the next 30 years. But unlike many of the combatants of those early tournaments, St. John’s is still in the Big East, trying to win more.